Джеймс Миченер - The Source

In a trance Gomer picked up the water jug and lugged it back to Rachel, where she set it down without speaking. She then crossed the street and presented herself before Rimmon and Mikal. There was straw in her hair, betraying where she had spent the night, and deep lines in her face. When she saw that Mikal was wearing the white dress, she tried to run from the house, but she could not. Her finger pointed. Her voice grew harsh, and facing her daughter-in-law as she nursed the boy Ishbaal, she cried, “All the daughters of Canaan shall be cast out. Yea, all the sons of Israel who have whored after the daughters of Canaan shall cast them away.”

Mikal fell back with a painful gasp. Hiding her bosom as if she were defiled she whispered, “Gomer? What have you done?”

“Out!” the old woman shrieked. “You are no more! You and the child. Out!” Like a fury hounding the condemned she pressed down upon the stricken girl, screaming at her, “Whore! Corrupt! Daughter of Baal!” And she forced the gentle girl from the house and into the street. For a moment Rimmon tried to intervene, but his mother interposed herself between husband and wife and in the end Mikal had to run sobbing down the Water Street to her father’s house, taking her son with her.

When she was gone Gomer imprisoned Rimmon in their little home and said, in words that of herself she could not have invoked, “Remember Jerusalem, how it lay nestling in the mists, with the temple of Yahweh within its arms, and you climbed through the slanting sunbeams, whispering praises to the noble city. O let Jerusalem live in your heart, let it be the breath of your life, the kiss of your beloved.”

Rimmon was appalled at what was happening. His mother had become insane, and he could do nothing to help her. She had humiliated his wife and banished his child, and he was disgusted with himself for even having stayed behind to reason with her, and he made as if to leave, but what she said next transfixed him, and when he heard, he was able for the first time in his life to see the years stretching out before him; even when he had been working in the slave pits of Babylon he had supposed that it would prove temporary, and it had. But now his mother spoke in apocalyptic tones: “You shall suffer in Babylon, O Israel. In Babylon shall you groan in the sweat of slavery. You shall be tempted, yea, you shall be tempted sorely and your strength will fail. You shall curse me, and other gods will offer promises that must seem sweet to you. But among you there will be those who remember Jerusalem, who heard the fall of my foot along the sacred ways, who knew the temple, who saw the fair girls dancing in the moonlight, who saw the pillars Jachin and Boaz, who sang the sweet psalms of David and Gershom, Remember Jerusalem, you who have forgotten so much, and redemption will be upon you.”

Gomer fell back. Neither she nor her son spoke, and after a while she left the house without him and went into the market place, where she cried in a loud voice, “You children of Israel who wish to prepare yourselves for the long captivity ahead, come with me to the mountain that we may destroy the god Baal, forever and ever from this day forth.” And she led a small group of men and women devoted to Yahweh toward the sacred place. But Governor Jeremoth, knowing that he must not start the defense of Makor with Baal destroyed, dispatched guards to halt the fanatics, and there was struggling, and only Gomer and one old man named Zadok reached the top of the hill, and they were clearly quite inadequate for the knocking down of so great a monolith, deeply rooted in the earth, but when they put their shoulders against the stone, their loose hair flowing in the wind, they toppled it and sent it crashing down the mountainside, where it broke into many pieces. And Baal would not go into captivity with them.

With the loss of the local god a sense of gloom began to settle over Makor, and those who revered Baal began to mumble against Gomer, and Jeremoth fell into a rage and ordered the old woman to be arrested. She was put into a jail, but people of the town, wherever they were within the walls, heard her piercing voice as she warned them, “Israel will be destroyed, for you have abandoned Yahweh. You, all of you who hear me this day will die in Babylon, using the salt of your tears to savor your food. You are doomed. Surrender to Nebuchadrezzar before he storms your gates. Go out and bend your necks before him, because he serves as the scourge of Yahweh, who commands this servitude upon you. Miserable, miserable men of Makor, you who have whored after Astarte, you are lost forever. Your town, your pretensions are no more.”

Her dreadful wailing disturbed the night, and when Governor Jeremoth, beset by many problems relating to the defenses, summoned Rimmon and asked him what to do about his mother, the young captain was outside the spell of her incantation and he said, “Her misery has driven her mad and she is speaking treason. We had better silence her.”

Governor Jeremoth sighed with relief and said, “I’m glad you see it as I do. I was afraid you might …”

“About Mikal. What my mother did was horrible, and I’ll explain to your daughter.” He volunteered to accompany the governor home, but as he started to do so Gomer, who could not possibly have seen him, screamed from the jail, “Sons of Israel! Do not go back to the evil women of Canaan! Take no foreign women with you to Babylon. Take only the daughters of Israel! If you fail to heed these words, Yahweh will strike you with boils, with plagues, with leprosy. My son Rimmon! Do not slide back to the whore of Canaan!”

The words hung in the night like a brazen curse, etched from metal and burning into the consciousness of the Hebrews. They had found the daughters of Canaan attractive, and they had married them and many had slipped into the ways of Baal. They were perplexed about the future, and here came this dire voice reminding them that they had done evil in turning their backs on Yahweh and neglecting the daughters of Israel.

Rimmon was especially struck by the malediction, for of all the Canaanite girls he had picked the fairest, a wife so good that she brought dignity to the term, a girl who was more faithful to the precepts of Yahweh than many of the Hebrew girls he had known. Now he was told to abandon her in preparation for the exile ahead, and he could make no sense of such instruction. But he and Governor Jeremoth were not to worry about this problem tonight, for they had scarcely reached the governor’s home, where Mikal waited, when they were called to the temple area, where a fire was blazing. As if she had the power of Samson, Gomer had broken out of jail and had led a group of her followers to the Astarte temple, and there she had driven away the prostitutes and set fire to the holy place. A small wind kept the flames roaring, and before long the temple lay in ashes.

This was more than Governor Jeremoth could tolerate, and he caused the insane woman to be chained and led to the bottom of the shaft, where bolts were hammered into the wall and where she was kept prisoner during the critical period required for finishing the defenses. But from the well she cried her message to those who passed and to those who gathered at the lip: “Gird your hearts for the tragedy ahead. Say farewell to the olive groves, to the sweet wine presses, to the children of your neighbors, to the well where you drew the sweet waters. All is desolation. Israel is condemned to wander across the face of the earth. You have been faithless. You have been evil. You have been obstinate and unfaithful to our covenant. O Israel, who will have mercy upon your afflictions? How terrible are the scenes you shall witness with blinded eyes. How you shall choke upon food that is denied you. Desolation, desolation. You shall wander across the earth because you have betrayed me.”